The invention relates to a method and an apparatus for generating a sensor signal for a track-banking-dependent inclination of a rail vehicle with the use of measured signals for the train speed, for the angular speed of a train car chassis about the roll axis, and for the transverse acceleration.
Due to increased speeds in rail-bound passenger travel as a means of shortening travel times, a track-curve-dependent inclination regulation or control of the car-body inclination system is desired for traversing curves, that is, curved tracks. In this regulation or control, the negative transverse acceleration increases that occur during traversing of curved tracks should be avoided or minimized to prevent a loss of comfort for the passengers, despite the increased train speeds.
Known means for achieving this are active and passive inclination adjustments. In an active action, the inclination of the car body is adjusted or changed, while the pendulum oscillation of the car body is utilized in a passive action.
In an active action, a value that is used as a relevant value for the effective transverse acceleration is used as a signal. An example of a value of this type is the angle of inclination of the car body with respect to the ground, that is, the earth's surface, which is assumed to extend horizontally. This angle of inclination is added to a track banking or super-elevation angle, and is a function of the geometry of the curved track and the train speed.
German Patent No. DE 37 27 768 C1 discloses a method and an apparatus for generating an actuating signal for the curved-track-dependent inclination of a car body. The actuation signal is generated with the use of measured signals for the vehicle speed, the angular speed of the vehicle frame about a longitudinal axis oriented in its direction of travel, and the transverse acceleration perpendicular to the direction of travel and parallel to the track plane. A drawback here is that the transverse acceleration, and not a track banking, is used to form the actuation signal. Only a roll angle integrated from the rolling speed is determined for activating and deactivating the inclination control. The integration of the gyro offset, however, results in a roll-angle drift that renders the switching process functional for only a short time. To lengthen the function time, gyros having a small gyro offset are necessary, resulting in a high-cost generation of the actuation signal.
German Patent No. DE 27 05 221 C2 discloses an arrangement for controlling an inclination apparatus in which the noise-infested measured signals of an acceleration sensor are replaced by measurements with a roll gyro and a yaw gyro. This avoids unallowable time delays in the generation of the actuation signal that result during a necessary, heavy filtering of the measured signal of the acceleration sensor. However the integration of the roll angle from the roll speed brings about the drawbacks outlined above.
It is the object of the present invention to provide a method and an apparatus with which a sensor signal containing information about a track banking is generated in a simple and effective manner.